TimeOut

My other passion: video games from the 80's

 

I have to tell you: I have a passion for the video games from the 80's. It is the reason why I downloaded and installed a few years ago the MAME emulator which allows us to play Roms of arcade games.

Why do I love games from this period ?

Because they remind me my childhood when I started to play, because due to the limit of the hardware, the programmers were only focused on something we have maybe lost now with the outstanding graphics: Gameplay.

Moreover, these games give me the ability to play during 10 or 15 minutes and not all night long like it is the case with Warcraft...

I propose you to browse some of my fav ones, my selection which comes from my heart and my memories.

My first fav game was without any doubt Kangaroo. Kangaroo is a platform game in which you play a kangaroo mum which needs to free its baby from the monkeys... Punching the monkeys gave me a lot of pleasure ! Bonuses were available when you rang the bell.

All the pictures below were taken from the Arcade Museum website:

Beware of the apples !


Let's stay in a similar world with Pooyan. OMG, I don't remember how many coins I spent with this one !

It is the classic pigs & wolves story but believe me, bursting the wolves balloons was very addictive ! We were also able to throw meat to destroy several balloons at the same time... wait for various wolves and throw the meat just before they reach the top !


If too many wolves reach the top, they throw you the rock and it is the end of the pig mum...

I played Dig Dug on a lot of machines: Atari 2600, Commodore 64 and of course, its arcade version. If you played this game, you know the great pleasure we have to burst the monsters or even better to squash them with a single rock !


The interesting point of this game is the freedom you have when you move the main character. It allows you to elaborate different strategies. Of course, we always want to dig a large vertical tunnel below a rock and sometimes... we are too optimistic and we are squashed by our own rock !


Squashing monsters was for me an time consuming activity... because I also played at Pengo. Let's discover another context with the freezing icy world of Pengo. The spicy side of the game was its gameplay. The objective was not only to squash the monsters but also to destroy the eggs hidden in the ice cubes and to align the three diamond cubes to get bonus points. The will to see the intermediate scene with penguins every two stages also gave a lot of motivation !


A true penguin simulator !


Let's enter a new universe now: the shoot'em up.

I would like to present you four of them.

The first one is Galaga. Who didn't play this one ? The ability to get a double fighter, the will to discover the new stages, the new challenging stages, its perfect gameplay (not too easy, not too hard) makes me consider Galaga as one of the best shoot'em up of the history.

If you manage to free the captured fighter, you get the double fighter. But careful ! Don't shoot your fighter !


The first challenging stage:


Moon Patrol is a 1982 game and I still come back to it very often: in 1982, I found the horizontal scrolling so beautiful ! And the stages were quite different between them which gave a exciting challenge to the player.


Beware of the rocks and holes !


Time Pilot was a wonderful game due to its scenario. You travel through time... from the first WW to the future. Of course, when you advance in the time scale, the opponents become more powerful. You reach the next stage when you destroy the mothership, for example, a big balloon in the first stage:


Clouds were displayed with a three layers system which gives a feeling of depth. You get extra points when you catch the parachutist to save him (or to hit him, who knows ?)...


With Gyruss, you don't travel through time but through the solar system... to reach Earth !

The original side of the game is the way the fighter moves on the screen, a circular way...


The animated sprites gives a good 3D feeling:


The game was not very difficult and it was quite easy to reach planet Earth with training.

We are now in 1985 with a very difficult game: Ghost and Goblins. This one was a really coins devourer ! I think I lost thousands of lives before freeing the princess !


Something you don't see very often:


Let's talk about sports now ! You think that the most famous athlete with a moustache was Daley Thomson ? You are wrong ! It is the character from track and field !


For me the most difficult event was the high jump... and I loved the javelin and the long jump ! But at the end, the gameplay was a bit similar: run fast and find the right angle.


I also played a lot at Pole Position (1982) but I've never been a good player at race games. For a 1982 game, the 3D display was very impressive !


We are approaching the end of the 80's with Tetris. I love the arcade version of this game thanks to its different stages which bring a lot of new challenges to the people who played a lot at the computer version. I still play a lot at this one.


We organized Tetris tournaments with friends !


We are now in 1989 and to celebrate the end of the decade, I choose Golden Axe. Its Heroic Fantasy atmosphere, the ability to choose different characters, the interactivity with the objects and animals on the screen (you can ride dragons !) gave a lot of charm to this beat'em all game !



With the 90's, I stopped playing arcade games. My only come-back to them was when I played at Virtua Tennis but I've never experienced the pleasure I had during the 80's. For me, it was a fascinating period full of creativity and excitement. Strangely, I didn't play a lot at big classic games like Pac Man, Donkey Kong. But I don't regret it: with the MAME simulator, I test other Roms and at the end, I still come back to my selection. It is very funny to consider that almost 30 years after (that's scaring me !), I still have the same taste !

And you ? Did you play a lot during this period ? What are your favourite games ? Do you come back to them as I do or do you prefer to play the latest ones ?



Fr.Xavier
This message has been edited by foversta on 2010-12-27 13:54:01